(1) WHAT HAPPENS IN TRISOLARIS — STAYS IN VEGAS. “Netflix to Stage ‘3 Body Problem’ Immersive Experience at CES 2024”. Variety tells what visitors at the Las Vegas event will encounter.
Next month, Netflix will have a booth on the main CES show floor for the first time — where it will stage an “immersive experience” for the “3 Body Problem,” the sci-fi drama series from “Game of Thrones” duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and Alexander Woo.
The streamer’s exhibit space at CES 2024 will be located at the Las Vegas Convention Center’s Central Hall, Booth #17048. Per Netflix’s description of the activation: “An otherworldly headset will transport CES attendees into the mysterious world of ‘3 Body Problem’ in a fun and experiential way, showcasing the series’ genre-bending high stakes.” The experience keys off a key narrative element in the “3 Body Problem” universe, in which a gaming headset is used by characters to transport into an unknown world.
In the wearable-display experience, CES attendees will be able to watch the series trailer for the very first time. And as they watch, Netflix says, “they are transported into an immersive, real-world extension of the series, revealing clues about the nature of the core threat in the ‘3 Body Problem.’”…
(2) BAD BUZZ ABOUT GOODREADS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The saga of Cait Corrain, et al., takes the lede in the Guardian story, “’It’s totally unhinged’: is the book world turning against Goodreads?”
For Bethany Baptiste, Molly X Chang, KM Enright, Thea Guanzon, Danielle L Jensen, Akure Phénix, RM Virtues and Frances White, it must have been brutal reading. All received scathing reviews on Goodreads, an online platform that reputedly has the power to make or break new authors.
But the verdicts were not delivered by an esteemed literary critic. They were the work of Cait Corrain, a debut author who used fake accounts to “review bomb” her perceived rivals. The literary scandal led to Corrain posting an apology, being dropped by her agent and having her book deal cancelled.
It also uncovered deeper questions about Goodreads, arguably the most popular site on which readers post book reviews, and its outsized impact on the publishing industry. Its members had produced 26m book reviews and 300m ratings over the past year, the site reported in October. But for some authors, it has become a toxic work environment that can sink a book before it is even published.
“It has a lot of influence because there are so many people now who are not in the New York ecosystem of publishing,” says Bethanne Patrick, a critic, author and podcaster. “Publishers and agents and authors and readers go to Goodreads to see what is everybody else looking at, what’s everyone else interested in? It has a tremendous amount of influence in the United States book world and reading world and probably more than some people wish it had.”
Goodreads allows users to review unpublished titles. Publishers frequently send advance copies to readers in exchange for online reviews that they hope will generate buzz. But in October, Goodreads acknowledged a need to protect the “authenticity” of ratings and reviews, encouraging users to report content or behaviour that breaches its guidelines.
Goodreads said: “Earlier this year, we launched the ability to temporarily limit submission of ratings and reviews on a book during times of unusual activity that violate our guidelines, including instances of ‘review bombing’. This kind of activity is not tolerated on Goodreads and it diminishes the community’s trust in people who participate.”…
(3) THE HAUNTENING. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] BBC Radio 4 has had a short comedy, thriller. When he gets a gift from his girlfriend, he does not realize that it is a deep fake powered by an artificial intelligence. But the AI does not take well to criticism and things soon become personal… You can listen to it here. “The Hauntening”.
Travel through the bad gateway in this modern ghost story as writer and performer Tom Neenan discovers what horrors lurk in our apps and gadgets. In this episode, a celebrity birthday message from Joanna Lumley turns into a terrifying gift for Tom
Modern technology is terrifying. The average smartphone carries out three-point-three-six billion instructions per second. The average person can only carry out one instruction in that time. Stop and think about that for a second. Sorry, that’s two instructions – you won’t be able to do that.
But what if modern technology was… literally terrifying? What if there really was a ghost in the machine?
(4) POSTERIZED. Think of it as a start on next year’s shopping. Or simply a well-deserved gift for yourself. “Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk (Millennium Records, 1977)” at Heritage Auctions. Bidding is only up to $16 at last look.
Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk (Millennium Records, 1977). Very Fine on Linen. All English Language Japanese Record Store Poster (20.25″ X 29.25″) Robert Rodriquez Artwork.
Even though its films take place in a galaxy far, far away, the Star Wars franchise has connected with audiences since the original film’s release in 1977. 20th Century Fox had no idea that the film would resonate so much with fans, so when George Lucas agreed to pass up a $500,000 directing bonus to attain merchandising rights, it seemed safe for the studio to do. However, Lucas, who had seen the merchandising blitz that came with his good friend Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, knew well the power that films had on consumers. George Lucas’ imagination led to a licensing goldmine of action figures, play sets, posters, board games, books, trading cards, costumes, and more. It’s been 45 years since Star Wars hit the screen, and the franchise has raked in over $29 billion in merchandise sales alone. Much more than the Joseph Campbell hero’s journey set in a space opera, the retail and promotional items made in conjunction with this multi-faceted property have brought tremendous joy to fans worldwide and remain coveted among collectors. The characters, the settings, and the galaxy continue to be beloved by Force believers, and here we present an extensive treasure trove of rare items dating from 1977 to today. May the Force be with you!
Offered in this lot is a rare all-English language Japanese record store poster for Meco’s best-selling album Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk, which reworked the Star Wars score into a disco and jazz fusion medley. A restored poster with bright color and a clean overall appearance. Minor touchup and color touchup is applied to several creases. Grades on all restored items are pre-restoration grades.
(5) VISION QUESTS. Deadline studies the rapid advancement in animation effects in “’Across The Spider-Verse’, ‘Nimona’ & ‘TMNT: Mutant Mayhem’ VFX”.
… Since the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was awarded in 2002 to DreamWorks’ Shrek, the animation industry has made incredible strides. This awards season, such films are pushing the boundaries of what animation can be, and VFX plays a huge part in infusing new artistic styles into every frame….
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse pushed the animated comic book style of the 2018 film even further with six new, distinct worlds and a visually complex villain.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse amazed everyone in 2018 with an interpretation of animated comics, and set a bar for what animation could look like. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse exceeded expectations with the introduction of six new worlds, each with a new style of animation. While these were all challenging in their own way, VFX supervisor Mike Lasker says the most challenging aspect of the film was the new villain, the Spot.
“This was the culmination of every tool in our toolbox we had created over the course of production,” he says. “We had a lot of great reference paintings of him, and there were all these different, dark and evil sorts of purples and ink splattering off of him as he moved his limbs.” Using 2D tools integrated into the 3D animation software, Lasker’s team was able to add hand-drawn ink lines, paint strokes, distortion, and more to create the final look. “We ended up using the stroke system, ink splatter coming off the layers, heavy compositing, lighting, paint strokes—every area of the pipeline was involved.”
Lasker says look supervisor Craig Feifarek was an essential part of creating the final look of the Spot. “Craig actually lit and composited all of these shots,” he says. “He did a great job, but also the animation department did an amazing job prototyping how the Spot acts in the last shots of the film. They were able to create all these crazy flash frames… I look at this now and I’m still in awe of what they’ve done.”
(6) HERE’S MY NUMBER AND A DIME. Slashfilm says “A Chance Run-In With Ray Bradbury Helped Bring Blade Runner To The Big Screen”.
…Paul M. Sammon’s “Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner” provides an in-depth look at the genesis of “Blade Runner” and details Fancher’s attempts to seek out [Philip K. Dick] the man behind “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Unfortunately, the search was proving fruitless at first, with Fancher claiming “it was just about impossible to learn anything about him.” The writer, eager to get going on a script, took a trip to New York in search of the mysterious author’s agents, who turned out to be unhelpful.
What happened next was complete luck, according to Fancher, who ended up “accidentally” running into an author not dissimilar to Dick: the legendary author Ray Bradbury. The man responsible for sci-fi classics such as “Fahrenheit 451” and “The Martian Chronicles” handed Fancher a lifeline during their chance encounter. Flipping through his address book, he found Philip K. Dick’s home phone number and promptly handed it over to Fancher.
As the future co-writer of the “Blade Runner” script recalled: “the next day, in fact, I called Phil about the book and we set up an appointment to meet in his apartment.” The two spoke at Dick’s Santa Ana home where they are said to have gotten along well despite Fancher sensing some “manic” and “self-reverential” tendencies in the author, who seemed initially wary of any Hollywood treatment of his novels….
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born December 24, 1910 — Fritz Leiber. (Died 1992.) Now in Birthdays we come to the matter of Fritz Leiber.
Warning: this is my list of favorite works by him, not a definitive look at him.
I’ll start with The Big Time as it has long been my favorite work by him, and I must say that it has magnificently held up over the years. No Suck Fairy has dared approach it lest she turn to dust on the winds of the Change Wars.
First published sixty-two years ago as a novel by Ace Books, The Big Time started out as a two part-serial in Galaxy Magazine‘s in the March and April 1958 issues. It would win the Hugo Award for Best Novel or Novelette at Solacon.
It was well-received with Algis Budrys liking it but he noted it was more of a play than an actual novel. One set, a small number of actors — perfect to be staged.
There were also the Change War stories, collected in Snakes & Spiders: The Definitive Change War Collection, published by Creative Minority Productions which I can’t say I’ve ever heard of. It is available from the usual suspects. And yes, I just got a copy as I can still read short stories fine even if novels are long beyond me.
Next up without question are that barbarian and thief duo, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Leiber wrote it as a counterpoint he says in part to such characters as Conan the Barbarian, and I for one like them very much better. I think I’ve read all them, and they’re certainly his most entertaining writing by far.
I really like Conjure Wife which was awarded the Retro Hugo Award at Dublin 2019. A most delicious take on the premise that all women are witches, and told all so well.
Yes, I like his short stories by I can’t remember which are my favorite ones other than the Change
That’s my list of favorite Leiber works, what’s yours?
(8) COMICS SECTION.
- Tom Gauld sends help to those hunting for last-minute gifts.
(9) AFTER THE CALAMITY. [Item by Steven French.] Read Jeff Vander Meer “On Sven Holm’s Novella of Nuclear Disaster” in The Paris Review. The post-apocalyptic story Termush, originally published in 1967, was reissued earlier this year with a foreword by Vander Meer:
…In its treatment of the aftermath of nuclear war, Termush distinguishes itself from the so-called disaster cozies of the fifties, like the novels of John Wyndham, to occupy more urgent territory. In this genre, the dangers of some calamitous situation become entwined with an almost cheery disaster-tourism tone; more importantly, civilization always wins in the end, even if in an altered form. The militias may hold sway for a while, or the plague lay waste to whole towns, but by the novel’s close, equilibrium and balance, logic and order, always return to human endeavors. Not so much in Termush, which also eludes, through its particular focus and narrative velocity, echoes of Cold War conflict that otherwise might have dated the novella. Instead of a pervading sense of “the other” about to storm the gates, Holm delves into the psychology of the holed-up survivors and the hazards of societal breakdown….
… The right excerpt from Termush could easily have appeared in New Worlds, the seminal sixties magazine for the New Wave…
(10) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George takes us inside the “Wish Pitch Meeting”.
[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]
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A Merry Christmas to Everyone!
May Santa leave all of you comfort and joy which after all is the most crucial thing he can do.
(4) Cool. I do have the Intergalactic Touring Band album so this one seems right up my alley
(7) In addition to the ones you note I like Leiber’s Our Lady of Darkness, Gather, Darkness, You’re all Alone and “The Creature from the Cleveland Depths.”
(3) We can only think about one thing at a time? Really? So I can’t make coffee and think about something to go with it, and hold a conversation at the same time?
(4) That poster… they could have used the same one for Flash Gordon.
Happy holiday to all, and please, may the new year be better.
7). Indirectly, Fritz Leiber catalyzed Terry Pratchett’s Diskworld series, which started life as a pastiche of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and for everyone in the Northern Hemisphere, rejoice! The days are getting longer. (For those in the Southern Hemisphere… um… enjoy summer?)
(7) I’m afraid I’m not as enamored of The Big Time. However, I love me some Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I’m also extremely fond of Our Lady of Darkness, which I appropriately read for the first time while visiting San Francisco.
(2) Yay! This article mentioned the targeted authors right up front. Now let’s hope Goodreads-azon does something about this ongoing issue.
(7) Fritz Leiber was one of the first classic SFF authors I was able to buy in eBook format. (I think I started with “Gather, Darkness!”) I need to read more of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books. BTW Fritz Leiber’s father can be seen in a number of movies, including the 1943 “Phantom of the Opera.”
Merry Christmas! This holiday is more stressful than usual for my family because my mother had emergency hip surgery. 😐 Luckily, she seems to be in good hands.
@mark–(3) It’s a bit reductive, but basically, yes, we only think about one thing at a time.
I bet your morning coffee rarely involves thought. What you make for breakfast–probably minimal thought, over by the time you’re actually making.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!
The conversation requires thought.
LisC: oh, yeah? I can pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time. Far more important, I can pat one cat on either side of me differently at the same time, and think about it.
I’ll also note that each CPU can only do one instruction at a time….
No, mark you cannot think more than one thought at a time. As Susan Blackmore, an researcher in human consciousness, explains “Further, not only are we restricted to attending consciously to only one problem at a time, but we cannot, even unconsciously, be thinking about another. There can be no background processing or clever unconscious thoughts. In other words, we cannot have two thoughts at once.”
1) I’m not sure if any one has noted this, but to all who are interested, Prime Video has the Chinese 3 Body series. I’m 7-8 episodes in (of 30) and so far I’m finding it pretty compelling.
Merry Christmas!
Rochrist: Thanks for pointing that out. I have Prime and didn’t know.
I love the first five Lankhmar books, the sixth and seventh not so much. Our Lady of Darkness is another top pick. Lots of good short works, too.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all!
@mark – no, CPUs typically use a pipelining architecture that measn they’re busy executimg several portions of different instructions simultaneously at every clock cycle.
My experience attempting to learn physical skills, from skateboarding to ballet, has been that the body basically learns by doing, with an abrupt transition from “wow this is hard” to “hey no problem” once the motor skills are in place. So my hands can be doing familiar things in the kitchen while my verbal mind is pondering a reply to something I read on the internet. Though I sometimes find myself (or some part of my “self”) putting things in the refrigerator that don’t belong there…
On Leiber stories, “A Pail of Air” is a classic. Less well known but favorites of mine are “The Beat Cluster” and “Our Saucer Vacation”, the latter being a gentle parody of Heinlein juveniles. And Fafhrd and the Mouser are at, maybe not their best, but their most entertaining, when they find themselves working at cross purposes.
@Cassy B
Yay longer days!
Happy festivus, everybody!
I think that Andrew Jackson Libby can do more than one train of thought simultaneously.
bill: and so can one of the World councilors in Beyond this Horizon
Ok, tell me about your favorite SF mystery. Three of my mine are Stross’ Halting State, Walter Jon Williams’ This is Not a Game and Miéville‘sThe City & The City and Bester’s The Demolished Man.
PBS has been running a Chinese language version of “Three Body” with English subtitles, but the episodes are not labeled—am I watching the 3rd? the 17th?—so I gave up. Also, lots of strident “Glory to the Chinese Workers!” music. Pass.
Favorite SF mysteries. Jack Vance’s Marune: Alastor 933 and Kate Wilhelm’s Death Qualified share the same beginning: a character whose memories have been removed or suppressed. Obviously a work of mischief, but why? In another Wilhelm, Oh Susannah, the main character hits her head and not only loses her memory but begins confabulating in surprisingly insightful ways. This one is regrettably hard to find now.
Cliff – look up “instruction pipelining”. The CPU is still doing one instruction at a time. The instructions come faster, but it’s still one at a time.
And CatE — Susan Blackmore is certainly not the last, or even only, word on consciousness.
And mark says Susan Blackmore is certainly not the last, or even only, word on consciousness.
No, she isn’t. However what all they agree on what is she says there — we can only think of one thing at a time. Indeed all creatures who are think share this immutable reality.
Cliff has it correct, but if you don’t accept pipelining then there’s superscaling and SIMD.
(2) Betteridge’s Law strikes again!
Favorite SF mysteries: Bester gets two: The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man. Dean Koontz’s A Werewolf Among Us, about a “cyber detective” – a human with a bio-interfaced computer – investigating a murder on another world that is claimed to have been committed by the local version of a werewolf. Jack Vance’s Nightlamp, about a young man who knows nothing of his past – he was adopted on another world as a child – who finds himself at odds with unknown antagonists somehow connected with his origin.
PhilRM, I keep forgetting about The Stars My Destination which is a stellar mystery with not a word wasted, same for Demolished Man.
Nightlamp is worth reading for the academic conference alone.
@Cat: It’s actually my favorite of the two, although that might be because I read it first.
@Jim Janney: That is so true.
In his book “What do You Care What Other People Think”, Richard Feynman describes being able to mentally count at a regular pace while reading a newspaper, or typing. And his friend John Tukey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tukey
was able to mentally count at a regular pace while talking about an arbitrary subject.
If anyone could hold two trains of thought in parallel, it isn’t surprising that Feynman would be that person.
@bill–Your link is just the Wikipedia page on Tukey, which doesn’t mention this ability, and doesn’t mention Feynman. Were either of them ever tested on this ability under controlled conditions?
7) I’d be happy to give some of Leiber’s other works a shot. But the Fafhrd/Gray Mouser stories bounced off me.
The Conan stories do better for me.
Regards,
Dann
A man’s got to have a code, a creed to live by. – John Wayne
@Lis — It’s all in the book. Feynman would mentally count to 60 at a what he supposed to be a constant rate, and it routinely would take 48-49 seconds. He was very consistent at this. Then he would do other things at the same time to see if they affected the length of time it would take him to mentally count to 60. Exercise and raising his pulse rate did not, talking did. He decided the relevant factor in whether the alternate activity upset his counting train of thought was whether the second activity was somehow auditory in nature, as his counting process was like mentally listening to a clock tick off sixty seconds. So talking upset it. The length of time he took to mentally count off 60 when talking was not consistently 48-49 seconds, but longer.
His friend Tukey, OTOH, could talk and mentally count at a regular pace. Feynman tried to figure out why and it turned out that when Tukey was mentally counting, he was watching numbers go by as if printed on a ticker tape. So the things that would upset his ability to mentally count at a consistent rate were visual in nature, but if his second track was auditory, he could do it in parallel with the counting.
Fenyman’s conclusion was that, for some people at least, “thinking” might be in different parts of the brain (auditory, visual, etc.), depending on what was being “thought” about. And if two different trains of thought were localized in different parts of the brain, it would be possible to execute them both simultaneously.
This makes sense to me. I can drive a car and carry on a detailed conversation at the same time. I’ve heard of actors on stage who, while playing a role, think about other things at the same time, or observe members of the audience, etc. I’ve seen artists who can draw a picture and discuss something entirely unrelated while doing so.
Feynman did not describe any 3rd party controlled experiments. But what he did himself seems perfectly adequate in terms of controls. He isolated the effect he was investigating, subjected it to different variables and stimuli, and measured the outcome. He did it on others as well. Given that this is the same guy whose “amateur” experiment with a C-clamp, an O-ring, and a glass of ice water convinced the Rogers Commission that problems with launching in cold weather were what caused the Challenger shuttle disaster, I’m willing to accept his “uncontrolled” report in lieu of some experiment conducted in a university psychology lab setting.
The wikipedia link to Tukey was just to give background on him. I assumed that most filers were familiar with Feynman at some level. I had not known anything about Tukey, and found his story interesting.
@bill–No, one person’s own estimation of how consistently he’s doing something and what is going on in his neurons, is not a valid scientific test. It’s suggestive, but the best you can say is that it warrants further investigation.
But multitasking has been scientifically tested by scientists whose field the brain is, with test groups significantly greater than one. And if all you’re going to offer for references is a Wikipedia article that doesn’t mention the subject at all, and “go read Feynman’s book,” I’m not going to bother, either.
“one person’s own estimation of how consistently he’s doing something and what is going on in his neurons, is not a valid scientific test.”
Nobel prize winning physicist Richard Feynman’s scientific chops aren’t good enough for you? Wow. High standards, that.
(and it wasn’t an “estimation”, it was a measurement. You know, like scientists do.)
“And if all you’re going to offer for references is a Wikipedia article ”
I am reminded once again that you don’t engage with what is actually written, but you make things up and respond to that. It’s quite clear from my second post that the wikipedia article was not offered for a reference, but as background on Tukey. The only reference is Feynman’s first-hand account in his book.
“test groups significantly greater than one. ” Feynman + Tukey does not equal one; it equals two.
“I’m not going to bother [to go read Feynman’s book].” Read it or don’t, it makes no difference to me (but it’s a great read from one of the true scientific geniuses of the 20th century).
Here’s Feynman telling the story on the BBC:
https://youtu.be/Cj4y0EUlU-Y?t=135
Feynman is a theoretical physicist, not a neurologist. Being brilliant in the one field doesn’t make him an expert in the other, unrelated field. Your argument from authority is ridiculous.
And no, no one person’s uncontrolled test of their own abilities, is sufficient to refute the work of experts in another, unrelated field. Not even supported by one other person, also not an expert in the relevant field.’
What is a thought, or more specifically, how do you define a thought? There are a variety of specialized brain regions and neurologists have shown that more than one can be active at once. In my case, I can visualize a number I’m supposed to remember while answering unrelated questions. However, it’s been reported that not everyone can visualize. So, maybe the answer depends on the individual human.
Jeff Jones: I’ve been trying to imagine the Feynman experience based on impressions of my own mental processes. I know I can have an active thought while in the background being aware there’s another thing I need to return to as part of the overall evaluation. So I might guess that the physical parts of the brain doing each of these activities have been “fired” in some way and that the brain is structured to identify and recapitulate the recent work when the immediate thought task is terminated.
Coincidentally, I’m currently reading Visual Thinking by Temple Grandin. She says there are at least three major modes of thinking (verbal, visual, and spatial), and they are on a continuum — everyone has their own unique mix of ways they are good at thinking. Also, brain structure can change. Learning the violin at an early age builds stronger connections between the left and right hemispheres. Creativity is multi-modal. Scientists who have won major awards are more likely to have had creative hobbies. In other words, fandom is good for you!
I see no reason to doubt Feynmann’s description of his own thought processes. He was a genius and extraordinary minds like his just aren’t the norm. What I find interesting from Grandin’s book is that normal people are not all the same either. She is a strong proponent of recognizing neurodiversity and letting everyone become the best that they can be, in their own way.
Also coincidentally, my jazz instructor recently told me how important it is to count while playing so that one knows at any given time where one is both in the bar and in the overall chord sequence. He also reassures me that eventually the counting becomes unconscious. I can certainly say that, in the interim, counting and improvising at the same time is extremely difficult.
Counting for me is very definitely a verbal thing. Now I’m intrigued to see if attempting to count on a mental ticker tape a-la Tukey might be helpful.
@Cat Eldridge
“As Susan Blackmore, an researcher in human consciousness, explains “Further, not only are we restricted to attending consciously to only one problem at a time, but we cannot, even unconsciously, be thinking about another. There can be no background processing or clever unconscious thoughts. In other words, we cannot have two thoughts at once.””
If you read the article by Blackmore from which this quote comes
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ten-zen-questions/201911/can-you-have-two-thoughts-once
you see that the quote is not Blackmore’s opinion or statement; she is telling us what Nick Chater says in an article of his that she is reviewing.
And it turns out that she explicitly disagrees with Chater. Later on in the review, she flat-out says that “We can have two thoughts at once.”
@Lis Carey:
“Being brilliant in the one field doesn’t make him an expert in the other, unrelated field.”
First of all, Feynman was brilliant in multiple fields. He was one of the great polymaths of science.
And you don’t need to be an expert in psychology to come to Feynman’s conclusion that two simultaneous trains of thought are possible. You just need to look at the problem logically, come up with an experiment that tests the hypothesis, make careful measurements, and confirm it with another subject. This is what the scientific method is all about, and it’s how scientific progress is made.
“Your argument from authority is ridiculous.”
It’s not my argument, it’s Feynman’s.
It’s not from authority, it’s from experimental examination of the question.
And unless you somehow engage with the data and arguments of those who say “two trains of thought are not possible”, instead of simply saying that “expert psychologists tell us . . .”, you are the one arguing from authority, not me.
Many, many pianists can play two against three, subdividing a beat or a measure in two with one hand and in three with the other. Whether that counts as thinking depends on your definition of thought.